


Drunk

by Yakarmi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Childhood Memories, Gen, POV Kenny, Poor Life Choices, Regret, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29200545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yakarmi/pseuds/Yakarmi
Summary: “Your life flashes before your eyes just before you die,” my mother used to tell me and Kuchel growing up. “So make it a good one so you can rest in peace. Go out with a smile.”I never really listened to my mother.---As Kenny is dying he reflects, examining the memories of his past.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Drunk

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Kenny.

“Your life flashes before your eyes just before you die,” my mother used to tell me and Kuchel growing up. “So make it a good one so you can rest in peace. Go out with a smile.”

I never really listened to my mother.

That was Kuchel’s job. The good little daughter. Always better than me because while I played in the dirt and dyed my clothes a muddy mixture of brown and green, she played with her dolls. While I got into fights, she made friends.

Kuchel deserved so much better. And I deserved so much worse.

I am dying. Face burnt, body battered, and betrayed. My body rag-dolls against the tree, legs spread out and head limp against the bark. I rest my eyes.

The first memory is of a hot summer’s day.

The sun burns, the bugs buzz and the air sits thick and heavy in my lungs as I run from Kuchel.

This is the year Kuchel truly discovered she had an older brother. A wiser brother. A brother she could follow and pester each and every day because mom said it was okay. That it was good for her to have an older brother to show her the big wide world.

I call bullshit. I am just a convenient babysitter.

“Kenny!” Kuchel calls, her voice small and breathless. “Wait up! I want to come!”

I chance a look behind me, Kuchel is racing after me, her dress hiked up as she waddle-runs towards me. Impressive speed for an eight year old in a dress. I speed up.

I discovered the pond just a few days ago and I’m not sharing it with nobody. Not even my own sister.

A few meters ahead, I lose her passing by a tree. I can hear the thump as she trips on a branch. I consider laughing for a moment, but then I hear her crying.

Mom wouldn’t be happy, I tell myself, and I turn around.

Accompanied by a snot-faced and sobbing sister, I find myself at the edge of my little pond. My oasis away from the outside world that mom told me would hunt me down if they discovered my last name was Ackerman.

I plop down amongst the soft grass and small white wildflowers. Next to me, a purple one stands out. A deeper, darker, richer color than all the rest. Unique. I pluck it and place it in Kuchel’s hair. Her sobbing quiets.

We splash around in our little pond, our oasis, together. When the sun hangs heavy in the sky, its orange and red fading light starting to paint the clouds, we finally leave.

Kuchel complains about her water-logged and heavy dress so I tie them into shorts, bringing the fabric back through her legs and into two separate ropes to tie around her waist. She’s much happier.

The sun burns. The bugs buzz. The air sits thick and heavy in both our lungs as we walk home together.

The second memory is of Uri.

I am in his study. Always in his study. Like some sort of lapdog. I sit there and twirl my dagger, feet hoisted on the desk right in front of the looming pile of paperwork he is working on.

There is silence. There has been silence since I walked in and there will be silence so long as I don’t open my mouth. Uri makes it a point not to address me when he’s busy. Keep his head angled to the papers even when my boots, cleaned by the grass afforded outside the castle, thunk against the dark wood of the desk.

I never ask him why. He never explains. Perhaps he means for it to be derisive, to show me my place as his lapdog. Perhaps he sees it as a form of control.

I see it as a form of trust.

Grasping the hilt of my dagger, my arm whips forward as though throwing it. Not a single finger lifts as it stays in my hand. The blade was aimed directly at his head, but Uri doesn’t so much as flinch.

“Why do you never take care of the titans outside the walls?” I ask for the millionth time. I always ask. Uri never answers.

The silence persists, cutting through and dispersing my question like it was never there. A bad smell aired out.

Still, I stay in his study since I am always in his study. Maybe I am his lapdog.

The third memory is of Levi.

The kid is gifted with a knife. A complete natural, just like his old Uncle Kenny. It invokes an odd sort of pride in me, watching my young protege take down a man double his size. I stand there, hands in my pocket. Assessing the scene. Assessing Levi. Assessing the panicking man laying on the ground with a kid holding a knife to his neck.

The runt looks back at me, searching for some sort of affirmation, a confirmation that he did well. All I need to do is nod, Levi understands the non-verbal form of communication by now. It’s expected.

What’s unexpected is the smile Levi sends back. Almost innocent like the Underground hasn’t fully broken him yet. He looks like Kuchel used to.

My heart seizes in my chest.

What would she think if she could see her son now?

I know Kuchel’s mind, I tell myself, even if we went years without speaking. She would tell Levi he did good as well. She would know that I am raising him the best I can given the circumstances. Given our name, the Underground and the fucking MPs that always try to sniff about.

Or maybe I am just projecting.

Still, the kid smiles at me like my nod means the world to him and I can’t hold back a smile of my own. Not the devil-stolen, death-dealing smirk that haunts half of the Underground’s population and has been the last image seared into the eyeballs of countless MPs, but a true, gentle smile.

The kid is gifted with a knife. A complete natural, but I know he is destined for greater things. That he will be the one to make it out of here.

Or so I hope.

I chuckle, a garbled sound. My throat hurts. Probably burnt too. I cough blood out but it means nothing when I’ve bathed in blood my entire life.

It’s funny. That those memories would be the ones to visit me in my final moments.

For a man with a one-way ticket to hell, you’d think every one of my sins would assault me and drag me down. Every MP I killed grabbing at my ankles. Every head I sent rolling tumbling over to bury me like an avalanche.

Instead I see Kuchel. I see Uri. I see Levi.

I open my eyes and I still see Levi.

I don’t deserve the company of the kid in my final moments. Really looking at him, so short and yet so grown, I know he’s not just a kid anymore. He is a fighter, just like I trained him to be. Strong enough to escape the Underground and see the light for himself.

He looks at me with such disdain.

And I’m proud. I’m proud because he can look at me outside of that familial bond. That he can look at me for who I am and what I’ve done. That he can fight me.

It proves he is a better person than me. Like Kuchel.

And maybe that is why I never told him. So that he could escape the shackles of blood and family. So that he could grow without a serial killer of an uncle weighing him down. But now that he’s free, it doesn’t matter much anymore.

I finally tell him who I am, in doing so passing on the family name his mother never gave him. The one that only gave us two siblings pain. The one I only trust him to own and pass on. To wear with pride and give it a whole new meaning.

He asks why I left and the question itself hurts.

I was never much of a guardian, could never be a father, and I resent not being able to give someone as good as him a fair life. Thinking back, maybe it was some sort of self-justification when I told him earlier that everyone is drunk on something. That I was drunk on power. Too drunk for him.

I avoid looking at his face because I know that if I do, I will wish for the first time in my life that I had been sober.


End file.
